Page:Clarence Mulford - Man from Bar-20.djvu/171

 An Observant Observer Pete. "There's some coffee runnin' down yore neck. You never ought to laugh when yo're drinkin'. Good thing it wasn't whiskey. Things allus comes in bunches. That purty near allus holds good, as mebby you've noticed. I have. I saw one prospector, a cow-puncher gone loco, hoofin' it in th' dirt alongside his loaded cayuse. Of th' two I thinks most of th' cayuse. It was a black, of thoroughbred strain, steppin' high an' disdainful, with more intelligence blazin' out of its big eyes than its master ever had. So when I sees you ridin' along with a big pack I reckoned mebby that you must 'a' eat some of th' same weed an' had got th' same kind of hallucernations. They's different kinds, you know. But this is once th' rule fails. There won't be no bunch of prospectors, an' I know why; but that's a secret. There won't be no third."

Ackerman looked keenly at him through narrowed lids, speculating, wondering, puzzled. Then he leaned back and yawned. "Is there a prospector down here?" he asked incredulously. "You don't mean it."

Long Pete coolly looked him over from boots to sombrero. "I'm duly grateful for this sumptious feed, an' I know what is th' custom when you breaks bread with a man; but I do mean it; an' I don't lie even when my words are ramblin' free. I reckon, mebby, you ought to remember that. We'll sort of get along better, day after day." 159